These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself Have banish'd me from Scotland.—Oh, my breast! Mal. Macduff, this noble passion, Wip'd the black scruples, reconcil'd my thoughts No less in truth, than life: my first false speaking Now, we'll together; and the chance of goodness Enter a Doctor. Mal. Well; more anon.-Comes the king forth, I pray you? Doct. Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure: their malady convinces❜ The great assay of art; but at his touch, Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand, Mal. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor. Macd. What's the disease he means? 3 - their malady CONVINCES] i. e. Overcomes: see Vol. ii. p. 174. To “convince" is sometimes to convict: see Vol. iv. p. 514. Mal. 'Tis call'd the evil': A most miraculous work in this good king, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, And sundry blessings hang about his throne, That speak him full of grace. Macd. Enter ROSSE. See, who comes here? Mal. My countryman; but yet I know him not. Rosse. Macd. Stands Scotland where it did? Sir, amen. Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot Alas, poor country! Be call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing, Is there scarce ask'd, for whom; and good men's lives Dying or ere they sicken. Macd. Too nice, and yet too true. Mal. Oh, relation! What is the newest grief? Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker. 4 'Tis call'd the evil:] It is said that Edward the Confessor was the first who touched for the cure of the king's evil, and the power was supposed to descend with the crown. It is certain that Elizabeth and James exercised it, especially the latter; in compliment to whom Shakespeare seems to have inserted this part of the scene, not in any way necessary to the action of the tragedy. It is struck out with a pen in the corr. fo. 1632, and was probably not then acted. Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace? them. Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes Of many worthy fellows that were out; Mal. Be it their comfort, We are coming thither. Gracious England hath An older, and a better soldier, none That Christendom gives out. Rosse. This comfort with the like! it ? Would I could answer But I have words, What concern they? That would be howl'd out in the desert air, Macd. The general cause, or is it a fee-grief, Rosse. No mind that's honest But in it shares some woe, though the main part Macd. If it be mine, Keep it not from me; quickly let me have it. Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound, That ever yet they heard. Macd. Humph! I guess at it. Rosse. Your castle is surpris'd; your wife, and babes, should not LATCH them.] To "latch," (in the north country dialect,) Steevens informs us, signifies the same as to catch. It has the same meaning in Norfolk, as we find from Holloway's "General Provincial Dictionary." 1838. 6 -fee-grief,] A grief that has a single owner, who holds it in fee. Savagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner, Merciful heaven! Mal. Rosse. That could be found. Wife, children, servants, all Let's make us medicines of our great revenge, To cure this deadly grief. Macd. He has no children.-All my pretty ones? Did you say, all?-Oh, hell-kite!—All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, At one fell swoop? Mal. Dispute it like a man. Macd. But I must also feel it as a man: I shall do so; I cannot but remember such things were, That were most precious to me.—Did heaven look on, Macd. Oh! I could play the woman with mine eyes, Bring thou this fiend of Scotland, and myself; 7 Were, on the QUARRY of these murder'd deer,] A “quarry was strictly a square heap of dead game. See Vol. iv. p. 607. 8 Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.] The following is from Montaigne's Essays, by Florio, b. i. ch. 2, a work of which it is known Shakespeare had a copy, and of which he certainly elsewhere made use:-"All passions that may be tasted and digested are but mean and slight. "Cura leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent. Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape, This tune goes manly'. Mal. Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may; [Exeunt. ACT V. SCENE I. Dunsinane. A Room in the Castle. Enter a Doctor of Physic, and a waiting Gentlewoman'. Doct. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked? Gent. Since his majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her night-gown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon it, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep. Doct. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what at any time have you heard her say? Gent. That, sir, which I will not report after her. Doct. You may, to me; and 'tis most meet you should. Gent. Neither to you, nor any one, having no witness to confirm my speech. "This TUNE goes manly.] The folios read, time, which Rowe fitly altered to "tune." Time could here scarcely be right, even were we to take for granted (which we are far from doing) Gifford's statement, that time and tune were, of old, used indifferently (Massinger, ii. 261). It would seem as if the Rev. Mr. Dyce does not acknowledge the distinction, for in Beaumont and Fletcher's "False Oue," Vol. vi. p. 234, he makes Apollodorus talk of "setting" his lines "to a solemn time," instead of "a solemn tune." No misprint could be more easy or more frequently committed, and hence the confusion by modern editors. 1 Enter a Doctor of Physic, and a waiting Gentlewoman.] This is the old stage-direction, but the English "Doctor," introduced in the last scene with Malcolm and Macduff, must also have been a Doctor of Physic, though not so described in the old editions. VOL. V. G g |